Arrived in Beijing in the morning (Dec. 1st) from Guangzhou via China Southern 8 AM flight. The plane was only 2/3 full. I guess its not peak tourist season. The reason became more apparent when we left the terminal.
In this part of China, there’s real winter. According to the locals, it’s a warm week here. It’s about 7 C (45 F) during midday. The temp drops to freezing at night. There is still some snow on the ground from recent weeks. Winter also means bad air quality due to the increased use of coal for heating. It’s technically mostly sunny (which doesn’t help with pollution). Everything is in a pale yellow haze, one could barely read building signs a block away. It’s felt worse than the worst day I could remember in Taipei 25 years ago. I wander how many people have respiratory problems here compare to Liping. I think the Birds Nest will look like it’s been deep fried in a few years.
We had a meeting with an old friend at his office located in the industrial park in the south west region of Beijing. It’s was a brain storming meeting. Everyone freely exchanged experiences and ideas. There were about equal number of pure engineers vs tech savvy business people. This means there was an equal amount of technobabble and biz buzzwords flying at each other. At times it was hard to figure out who was more full of it. I actually enjoyed that meeting, I even piled on my fair share load of bull.
Due to slow connection I will put up pictures later. Tomorrow, back to be a tourist.